Gears of War: E-Day Review Scores and What Critics Are Saying, Explained
Gears of War: E-Day's review embargo lifted October 1 with an 87 Metacritic score on Xbox Series X|S and 84 on PC, the best-reviewed Gears since Gears of War 3. Here's what critics are saying, what early access includes today, and everything confirmed ahead of the October 6 full launch.
The review embargo for Gears of War: E-Day lifted on October 1, and the numbers are in: a Metacritic average of 87 on Xbox Series X|S and 84 on PC, making it the best-reviewed mainline Gears game since Gears of War 3 in 2011. Players who bought the Premium or Collector's Edition can already play today through early access, with the full release following on October 6 for Xbox Series X|S, PC and day-one on Xbox Game Pass.
Here is what the prequel actually changes, what critics are praising (and knocking), and what you need to know before jumping into Kalona on Emergence Day.
1. What Is Gears of War: E-Day?
Developed by The Coalition with People Can Fly and published by Xbox Game Studios, E-Day is a prequel set 14 years before the original Gears of War. It drops players into the city of Kalona on the planet Sera during Emergence Day itself — the moment the Locust Horde first surfaces and plunges humanity into the Locust War.
Instead of the battle-hardened Delta Squad players remember, the campaign follows a younger Marcus Fenix and Dominic "Dom" Santiago as they form Bravo Squad alongside two new recruits, Mags Carter and Lucas Reyes. The pitch from the studio has been consistent since reveal: this is the origin story of Marcus and Dom's brotherhood, told before either man became the soldier fans met in 2006.
2. Release Date, Early Access and How to Play Right Now
The release structure has several moving parts, so here is the breakdown:
- October 1, 2026 — Early access opens for anyone who bought the Premium Edition ($99.99), Premium Upgrade or Collector's Edition.
- October 6, 2026 — Full global release on Xbox Series X|S and PC (Steam and the Xbox app), with the standard edition priced at $69.99.
- Day one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, with full Play Anywhere cross-progression between console and PC.
On PC, Xbox's official specifications call for roughly 115GB of free SSD space, so budget storage accordingly if you're preloading. Preload itself opened September 29 across Xbox and Steam ahead of today's early access window.
The step up to Premium and Collector's Edition isn't just about the early start, either. Both include the Bravo Squad Signature Weapon Pack, the Emergence Omen weapon skin, five seasonal customization packs beginning with the Emergence Pack, and 1,000 units of the in-game Iron currency. The Collector's Edition goes further still, adding a 15-inch Marcus and Dom statue, a SteelBook case, replica COG dog tags, an art print and a collector's box — physical extras aimed squarely at longtime fans of the original trilogy rather than newcomers deciding whether to buy in.
3. What the Critics Are Saying
With the embargo now lifted, E-Day is sitting at 87 on Metacritic for Xbox Series X|S (52 critic reviews) and 84 on PC (27 reviews) — Metacritic's highest Gears score since Gears of War 3 fifteen years ago. The consensus leans strongly positive, though it isn't unanimous.
- Eurogamer Germany called it "a campaign executed to perfection in terms of both technical aspects and gameplay," while MondoXbox described it as "arguably the series' strongest campaign."
- Console Creatures framed the tonal shift as deliberate: "It's a shift away from Gears 4 and Gears 5, and it feels like the game the studio genuinely wanted to make."
- Not every outlet is sold — Slant Magazine noted the cover-based shooting "doesn't break the mold," and France's Gamekult was the most critical, arguing the series has gone from setting trends to following them.
The overall picture matches what Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine showed just weeks earlier this September: when a long-running Xbox or PlayStation studio returns to a franchise's roots instead of chasing live-service trends, critics tend to respond well.
4. The Campaign: Story, Co-op and Tone
The campaign runs roughly 14 hours and, crucially, lets any of the four Bravo Squad members be controlled from the very first mission — online co-op supports up to four players, with two-player split-screen also available locally. Creative director Matt Searcy has described the co-op investment as substantial, noting that every squad member needed individual facial animation and dialogue reactions tuned for scenes they might not even be the one speaking in.
The result, by the studio's own description, is "kind of like Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan" — an intimate, character-first war story rather than a non-stop action reel, which lines up with how several reviewers characterized the campaign's quieter character beats between firefights.
5. Combat and Movement: What's Actually New
Cover-based combat is still the backbone, but the movement system has been reworked with sliding, mantling, climbing and new low-ground cover options that didn't exist in earlier entries. The Coalition has also leaned into destructible environments and a more pronounced gore system, both made possible by the jump to Unreal Engine 5.
Two new weapons stand out in the arsenal: the Gutpuncher grenade launcher and the Incinerator shotgun, alongside the returning Lancer and its signature chainsaw bayonet. If you're coming from Black Ops 7's season content, expect a much slower, cover-first pace by comparison — E-Day is not trying to be a fast-twitch shooter.
6. Multiplayer: Horde Siege and Versus
The headline new mode is Horde Siege, a 12-player PvE format built around three separate four-player squads operating on the same map with their own objectives. Squads mostly run their own missions independently but occasionally cross paths, and periodic map-wide Boss Invasion events force all three teams to contend with the same massive threat at once.
Alongside Horde Siege sits a refreshed 4v4 Versus mode, both of which were tested publicly during open betas over the summer before today's launch.
7. Technology: What Unreal Engine 5 Brings to Gears
E-Day is the first mainline Gears game built natively on Unreal Engine 5, and the critic reviews above largely credit the jump for the visual leap. The game supports ray tracing, Lumen global illumination, Epic's MegaLights lighting system, Nanite virtualized geometry, and native HDR10. On Xbox Series X, the campaign targets 60 frames per second, while multiplayer modes can run up to 120 frames per second.
That engine change is also why the PC install footprint is so large compared with earlier Gears entries — Nanite's highly detailed geometry and Lumen's real-time lighting both trade storage and GPU headroom for fidelity, which is the same trade-off several other Unreal Engine 5 games released this year have made. If your rig struggled with other UE5 titles, it's worth checking Xbox's published requirements before buying rather than assuming last generation's settings will carry over.
8. Quick-Tips Recap
- Full launch is October 6; early access for Premium/Collector's Edition owners started October 1.
- It's day-one on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass with Play Anywhere cross-progression.
- PC players should clear around 115GB of SSD space before preloading.
- Campaign is roughly 14 hours and supports 4-player online co-op or 2-player split-screen.
- Metacritic currently sits at 87 (Xbox Series X|S) and 84 (PC) — the best-reviewed Gears since Gears of War 3.
- Horde Siege is the new 12-player, three-squad PvE mode; Versus returns as a revamped 4v4.
For everything else happening across Xbox this fall, including how Xbox Series X|S stacks up against other platforms for GTA 6, or for more on what else is launching this month, check our full walkthroughs and guides archive.